A place of childrens' stories, funny blogs, unasked-for advice, stuff I've learned that might save you time and trouble, the perfect marriage (?), and other interesting stuff.

Home Security

I posted this a few years back; the message remains the same.

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I am the undisputed security officer of our house. I am the last one to go to bed, checking all door and window locks, turning the blinding outdoor light on at dusk, making sure that all documents with our names, addresses or private information is not visible through any window (alas, the Crankee Yankee thinks nothing of leaving his wallet in plain sight on his office table, which happens to be in front of a window).

I’ll admit I’m a little (well, a LOT) intense about home security. Each time there is a story on the news about a home invasion, I turn to the Crankee Yankee, saying, “see? SEE? This is why I do what I do!” And the Crankee Yankee, bless his patient heart, nods and smiles at me–he knows he can do nothing to soothe my security paranoia, so he just rolls with it.

Back when my best friend and I shared an apartment, I invented the simple but effective “security fork trap.” Here’s how it works: take a glass juice bottle, the kind with a small opening and a larger body, and fill it with metal forks, spoons, etc.; that is, anything that will make a loud noise. Then you put the lid back on, and balance the “trap” on its top so that it leans against the wall directly under the window. That way if someone jimmies the lock and steps in (did I mention that we lived on the ground floor?), they would knock over the trap, making a hell of a racket and waking us up.

The plan following that was that we would run out to finish off the would-be home invader with weapons of minor destruction; a rolling pin and a tiny souvenir baseball bat. After that, the plan was a little foggy, but at least we felt we would have an edge on the intruder. Somewhere in all of this someone was supposed to call the police, who would heroically show up in seconds to save us. Nothing of the sort ever happened; I guess any burglars just passed us by.

These days the Crankee Yankee and I are much too cheap to invest in a real security system. Plus both of us are at least computer-savvy enough to understand that anything with software can be hacked. It would just be our luck to be hacked AND pranked by an intruder with a sense of humor: “Oh, let’s not rob the place; let’s just drive them nuts instead!”

So, just in case, I still have a few fork traps in the basement. However, as we have five cats, you just know one of them will trip the trap just to mess with us.